Linguistic note for the day: the word THE seems to pop up many places my American-English brain would not put it. The editor in me wants to correct the usage. In the past few days, I've heard it used in these settings, and it seemed strange to me:

1. In sports, people cheer: "Go the Waratahs!!" (not, "Go Waratahs!")

2. In Bible study, we talked about prophets who were "post-the-exile" (not, "post-exile")

3. And on the classical radio station, it was announced that they would play "that pinnacle of the Romantic movement, Bruckner's the Third Symphony." (not, "Bruckner's Third Symphony)

Does this seem strange to anyone else?

At a dinner party last night, a girl came from the other end of the table to sit down by me and a few other women. She said she wanted to come talk to us girls and get away from the "boofy boys."

"Boofy?"
"You know, blokey."

One of the guys helpfully explained that it was short for "boofhead".

I never did get an exact definition, but it seems that the descriptor evokes something of the rugby-playing, beer-drinking, thick-headed male culture. (Not to imply that our fellow diners were thick-headed!)

In any case, we had a lovely girly conversation down at our end of the table. :)

I don't get winter here at all. For starters, I have no idea how to dress. Today, it's in the high 60's and sunny outside, but inside it's a lot colder! I need to wear my long johns and heavy sweaters just to be comfortable. But then when I go outside, I wish I had a T-shirt on! It's a bit disconcerting. I guess houses here are built to stay cool in summer, whereas where I come from, houses are built to stay warm in winter.

We had a women's day at church last Saturday. All the ladies started off having morning coffee outdoors on the church lawn, happily chatting away in the sunshine, and then when we all filed into the church, everyone put on their coats and scarves to sit through the talks in the freezing indoors of the church. And nobody batted an eyelash.

Something inside me screams that this is not the way it is meant to be! It's like being trapped in some dream where everything is backwards - a parallel universe where everything's gone horribly wrong but nobody seems to notice. Everyone just waltzes through their normal lives as if it were the most natural thing in the world to have winter in July and of course you put on your coat when you go inside. You take off your coat when you come outside.

I suppose I will get used to this some day, but for now, it just seems wrong.